Social Bookmarking

What is Social Bookmarking and Why is it a Useful Marketing Technique?

The basic concept behind social bookmarking is similar to “Add to Favorites” or “Bookmarks” that you are most familiar with using your web browsers like Firefox or Explorer. The bookmarks you create are stored on your computer however. Social bookmarking is different in that it allows you to store the information online so you can access it anywhere, anytime. The difference is that when you bookmark a page within a social bookmarking system, you are allowing your bookmarks to be seen across the web versus just on your personal computer.

Some of the best known web 2.0 bookmarking sites include Del.icio.us , Blinklist , Blogmarks , Furl , Kaboodle , ma.gnolia , Simpy , Spurl , StumbleUpon , Digg , and Wink. These sites are fertile ground in which to plant links to your company and increase traffic to your site. If you can be successful at utilizing them, users will be funneled to your business organically, in effect giving your company serious reach into territory where there is potentially a large market. Here’s how it works: When a person bookmarks a page, they are telling other users that they find the information useful. If two or three additional people bookmark the same page, it might seem useful to even more internet users, and so on. Additionally, there is a ranking system on these sites that moves pages to higher spots in the ranking system as they become bookmarked by more users. If several hundred or thousands of people bookmark a page, then that page is ranked even higher, and it is moved up accordingly as it is deemed to have extremely useful information on it. It can end up finding itself on the front page of the social bookmarking main page, where millions of users will see it and potentially click on it. Basically, it’s word-of-mouth advertising on steroids.

Listings on the main page of a social bookmarking site alone can send tens of thousands of visitors to that page in just one day since it is heavily viewed by users. The site also carries serious ranking weight on Google and other major search engines.

Social Bookmarking is at least a decade old. With the advent of Web 2.0 technology, Del.icio.us brought it to an entirely new level of significance and sophistication. If you visit the front page of Del.icio.us, you will see the front end of social bookmarking in action. On the left hand side there is a column called hotlist. These web pages are the current hot web pages, which are receiving the attention of hundreds of thousands of people, not to mention the attention of Google and Yahoo.

So What’s in this for Me?

Social Bookmarking websites like Digg and Del.icio.us represent the opportunity to get a lot of traffic fast, with high value / high quality linking to your website. Social bookmarking sites offer the best type of web traffic … VIRAL. In the internet age, there’s no better form of advertising than that.

Business owners know that the most reliable customers are the prospects that come from the referral of someone else. And that’s what online bookmarking sites offer and that’s what viral traffic or networking is all about.

In order to get views on a large scale from an online bookmarking site, your content must be good enough to meet the approval of enough people to warrant the listing of your website on the front page. This amounts to a huge mass referral for your web page with the obvious ton of credibility that goes with it.

The amount of traffic that can be generated can easily reach over 10,000 visitors a day, simply as a result of reaching the front page of Del.icio.us or Digg alone. This does not take into account the bloggers, website owners, and regular search engine directed visitors who will post a link to your site from their own site or forum. This in turn creates more and more compounding traffic. Now that’s real viral marketing!!!

The fact that Social Bookmarking sites are very popular is reflected in high page rankings by Google. This, in turn means that search engine spiders that visit these sites often help to index and rank the popular websites, which ultimately results in higher rankings among the organic listings. When search spiders are directed to crawl around your site more often, the results are always positive. Backlinks (one way links directly to your site) are increased significantly as well, and once again, your organic rank in the Search Engines will reflect this.

The effect snowballs as your site is seen by more and more people who also bookmark it, only they keep adding to its popularity, which is duly noted by the social site and the search engines all over again. Here’s one cycle that is truly virtuous!

Online bookmarking is a growing trend and successful online marketing strategies involve social bookmarking as a necessary, even essential component. Contact us if you need help with social bookmarking for your website.

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